[Peace-discuss] Anti war movement building

[Dlind49 at aol.com]

The momentum for the January 18 demonstrations and
rallies against the upcoming war in Iraq is building
globally – and locally.  Today I walked up and down
Berkeley streets putting up signs and handing out
flyers, encouraging people to join the rally in San
Francisco on January 18.  The responses surprised me. 


In a tiny café the cook told me that he wouldn’t be
coming, but SOMEONE would be going to represent his
breakfast cafe.  In the next block, the worker-owned
“Cheese Board”, where Yuppies faithfully visit daily
to buy their breakfast treats and a cup of coffee,
closed for the October 26 rally and all of the workers
took to the streets to join the demonstration.  On the
way, the workers handed out hot scones at the San
Francisco BART station where protestors arrived and
swelled to an amazing 100,000.  On that day, from the
stage where Barbara Lee was speaking,  I could see a
large peace sign over a sea of protestors and slogans
– their peace sign made completely out of bread.

In another tiny shop today I left a flyer with a woman
working there and before I could leave she said “I
have something to give you!  I’m handing this out to
everyone I can think of”.  She handed me a copy of an
article from The New Yorker (December 9, 2002) about
John M. Poindexter.   “Look at this, this guy’s in
charge of the ‘Information Awareness Office’ part of
the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency of the
Department of Defense.  He’s the former Naval Admiral
who was Ronald Reagan’s national-security adviser. 
Now his job is to put everything about everyone into a
gigantic database – tax records, driver’s license
applications, travel records,
shopping-mall-security-camera videotapes, medical
records, every e-mail anybody ever sent you – so that
all this information can be checked for terrorist
activity”.  She was outraged that a five times
convicted felon – busted for selling arms to Iran and
lying to Congress twice – was now in charge of putting
everything about everybody into cyberspace and
checking on us.

People are “getting it”.  In fact people who would
never have demonstrated in the past are joining
demonstrations and finding ways to voice their
opposition to this “war on terror” which is turning
into a “war on us”.  As the Patriot Act, Homeland
Security, TIPS and more and more bizarre things roll
past Americans and roll over their civil rights, they
are getting motivated and creative about speaking out.

One of the more unique strategies by activists in the
US and Japan, opposed to and impacted by censorship in
the media, is to use the mainstream media to their
advantage.  On page A17 of the January 6, 2002, New
York Times, a coalition of organizations have taken
out a half page add.  “Can You Let More Iraqi Children
Die?” is in large letters over the photo of a
beautiful young bald Iraqi girl, suffering from
depleted uranium exposure and dying from cancer.  A
book of photos by Takashi Morizumi “A Different
Nuclear War: Children of the Gulf War”, “Addicted to
War, Why the US Can’t Kick Militarism” by  Joel
Andreas, and Ramsey Clark’s “The Fire This Time: U.S.
War Crimes in the Gulf” are offered for sale or as
gifts for money donations to the January 18 anti-war
rallies in Washington DC and San Francisco.   The add
was paid for by donations from all over the world,
collected over the internet.  Yumi Kikuchi, one of the
organizers and a savvy international banker-turned
activist, told me “Why shouldn’t we advertise and use
the mainstream media just like they use it on us?”

Join us for a massive National Anti-War Rally on
January 18 in Washington DC and San Francisco.  For
details call:  (212) 633-6646 (NY) or (415) 821-6545
(SF)  www.InternationalANSWER.org
Sign the International People’s Referendum against the
war at: www.VoteNoWar.org

MESSAGE FROM YUMI:

Date: Tue, 07 Jan 2003 13:40:24 +0900 
From: "Yumi Kikuchi" <yumik at awa.or.jp> 
To: "gpc" <globalpeacecampaign at yahoogroups.com> 
CC: "open japan" <open-j at peace2001.org> 
Subject: Our NY Times Ad is printed today(Jan 6,
Monday) 


Dear peace friends around the world,

I am happy to tell you that our peace ad "Can You Let
More Iraqi
Children die?" ran today in the NY Times, section A,
page 17.
This time, we didn't pick the date so that we can save
the
ad fee(it is half the price). But what has happened is
better
than expected. Marketing specialists say that Monday
is the
best day of the week for opinion ads and odd number
page is 
better than even number page for eye catch.  As a
result, our ad 
ran on the best day at the best place.

Sara Flounders of International Action Center told me
over the
phone that there phone kept ringing all day today and
they
didn't even have time to see the paper!  People were
calling and
telling them that they saw the ad in NY Times!!  I
hope IAC gets
a lot of donation to cover the cost of Jan 18 Big
Peace Rally.
She told me it would cost $65,000 or more for one day.

Yumi